25 May
2010
25 May
'10
12:46 p.m.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/05/24/cray_1_gate_module_ebay/
I'm kinda surprised nobody bid on this:
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/CPU-module-Cray-1-Serial-No-1-1st-supercomputer-/2606…
Item number: 260600179087
Item location: Didcot, Oxfordshire, United Kingdom
Maybe someone from Bletchly should try contacting the seller about
putting it on display?
And here's the other:
http://cgi.ebay.com/Super-Rare-CRAY-1-GATE-CPU-Board-2-planes-LAST-ONE-/140…
Item number: 140408191311
Item location: Jupiter, Florida, United States
Then again, they probably aren't worth that much, are they; since they
are only a small part of the Cray....
--
--- Dave Woyciesjes
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"From there to here,
From here to there,
Funny things
are everywhere."
--- Dr. Seuss
26 May
26 May
4:12 p.m.
Dave Woyciesjes wrote:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/05/24/cray_1_gate_module_ebay/
I'm kinda surprised nobody bid on this:
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/CPU-module-Cray-1-Serial-No-1-1st-supercomputer-/2606…
Item number: 260600179087
Item location: Didcot, Oxfordshire, United Kingdom
Maybe someone from Bletchly should try contacting the seller about
putting it on display?
And here's the other:
http://cgi.ebay.com/Super-Rare-CRAY-1-GATE-CPU-Board-2-planes-LAST-ONE-/140…
Item number: 140408191311
Item location: Jupiter, Florida, United States
Then again, they probably aren't worth that much, are they; since
they are only a small part of the Cray....
Had he started the auction at a sensible price and let the market decide
it's true worth, I may well have. I actually find the whole artefact
market a little sad. I had a Cray-3 memory module for a while (now with
Jim Austin) and whilst you can admire the engineering that went into
such a thing you can never actually do anything with it. It would be
nice to think one day that SN1, or one of the Cray-3 (or even -4?)
systems could be put back together though that probably won?t happen for
a long time.
James
7:35 p.m.
It would be nice to think one day
that SN1, or one of the Cray-3 (or even -4?) systems could be put back
together though that probably won?t happen for a long time.
I thought CRAY-1 #1 is sitting at the Chippewa Falls museum? That is
the one that bounced around, finally ending its working days in the
UK, correct?
--
Will
9 p.m.
On Wed, 26 May 2010, William Donzelli wrote:
Did anyone ever come up with an emulation of the Cray-1? I'm interested
in seeing what working with these machines was like prior to UNICOS.
--
David Griffith
dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu
A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
A: Top-posting.
Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail?
It would be
nice to think one day
that SN1, or one of the Cray-3 (or even -4?) systems could be put back
together though that probably won?t happen for a long time.
I thought CRAY-1 #1 is sitting at the Chippewa Falls museum? That is
the one that bounced around, finally ending its working days in the
UK, correct? 
27 May
27 May
1:30 p.m.
On 5/26/10 11:48 PM, Al Kossow wrote:
Especially by it's being an attached processor, nearly all Cray-1
software (save for things like libraries) would be specific to whatever
front-end system was in use. Further, much of it was purpose-built by
the people using the machines.
I'm wondering if Cray themselves (current incarnation) might still
have COS lying around on tape somewhere.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
Did anyone
ever come up with an emulation of the Cray-1?
Someone was working on one.
The problem is there appears to be no software that has survived. 
2:24 p.m.
New subject: Cray-1 resurfaces in pieces on eBay * The Register
-----Original Message-----
From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-
bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Dave McGuire
Sent: Thursday, May 27, 2010 10:31 AM
To: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: Re: Cray-1 resurfaces in pieces on eBay * The Register
On 5/26/10 11:48 PM, Al Kossow wrote:
Especially by it's being an attached processor, nearly all Cray-1
software (save for things like libraries) would be specific to whatever
front-end system was in use. Further, much of it was purpose-built by
the people using the machines.
I'm wondering if Cray themselves (current incarnation) might still
have COS lying around on tape somewhere.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
A few years ago, I thought about buying a Y-MP on ePay. I worked in the same building as
the Cray Research office in Seattle, and asked them about software for non-commercial use.
They categorically shut me down. The license wasn't even available for money, I was
told. YMMV.... -- Ian
PS: I bought a VAX 6600 instead.
Did
anyone ever come up with an emulation of the Cray-1?
Someone was working on one.
The problem is there appears to be no software that has survived. 
2:41 p.m.
On 05/27/2010 10:30 AM, Dave McGuire wrote:
Especially by it's being an attached processor,
nearly all Cray-1
software (save for things like libraries) would be specific to whatever
front-end system was in use.
Not usually. The operating system needs to know a
little bit about
what's connected to the I/O channels (including the front-end systems),
but user-space software, including applications, normally relies on
operating system services from COS or UniCOS running natively on the
main CPU. Application software didn't normally interact directly with
the front-end systems any more than than application software on IBM
mainframes interacts with the mainframe's service processor. The
front-end systems were there to boot and manage the system and provide
I/O services for the operating system. Usually when sites upgraded from
a Cray-1 to an XMP they didn't have to change their application software
at all, even though the front end was completely different.
According to the users I've spoken to, the majority of Cray-1
applications were Fortran programs submitted as batch jobs. Sometimes
they substituted hand-optimized assembler for inner loops where CFT
didn't vectorize the code sufficiently.
Further, much of it was purpose-built by
the people using the machines.
That was true of almost all application software on Crays in the early
days. Later there were some commercial software packages that saw
significant use on Crays, for things like finite element analysis,
computational fluid dynamics, and various other types of simulations.
I'm wondering if Cray themselves (current
incarnation) might still
have COS lying around on tape somewhere.
Doubtful given how many times they changed hands.
Eric
2:58 p.m.
On Thu, May 27, 2010 at 2:41 PM, Eric Smith <eric at brouhaha.com> wrote:
According to the users I've spoken to, the
majority of Cray-1 applications
were Fortran programs submitted as batch jobs.
I recall that at least one COMBOARD was used to submit FORTRAN jobs to
a Cray. I don't know if the Cray spoke HASP natively or if there was
non-Cray gear mediating the process, but as far as the end-users were
concerned, they queued up a virtual card deck and, as if by magic, the
Cray ran the job and returned the output to the simulated line
printer.
-ethan
3:30 p.m.
On 5/27/10 2:58 PM, Ethan Dicks wrote:
I'd lay odds that that particular Cray was front-ended by an IBM
machine that received and processed the HASP jobs, otherwise there'd be
little point of doing it via HASP.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
According to
the users I've spoken to, the majority of Cray-1 applications
were Fortran programs submitted as batch jobs.
I recall that at least one COMBOARD was used to submit FORTRAN jobs to
a Cray. I don't know if the Cray spoke HASP natively or if there was
non-Cray gear mediating the process, but as far as the end-users were
concerned, they queued up a virtual card deck and, as if by magic, the
Cray ran the job and returned the output to the simulated line
printer. 
28 May
28 May
12:32 a.m.
On 27 May 2010 at 15:30, Dave McGuire wrote:
I'd lay odds that that particular Cray was
front-ended by an IBM
machine that received and processed the HASP jobs, otherwise there'd
be little point of doing it via HASP.
Have you really polled all of the Cray old-timers to see if they
might have a tape hanging around? I'd be surprised if someone like
Greg Mansfield didn't have something squirreled away somewhere.
Chuck
1:01 a.m.
On 5/28/10 12:32 AM, Chuck Guzis wrote:
No, I've not polled anyone for that stuff.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
I'd lay
odds that that particular Cray was front-ended by an IBM
machine that received and processed the HASP jobs, otherwise there'd
be little point of doing it via HASP.
Have you really polled all of the Cray old-timers to see if they
might have a tape hanging around? I'd be surprised if someone like
Greg Mansfield didn't have something squirreled away somewhere.
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12 comments
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participants (10)
-
aek＠bitsavers.org -
cclist＠sydex.com -
dgriffi＠cs.csubak.edu -
eric＠brouhaha.com -
ethan.dicks＠gmail.com -
IanK＠vulcan.com -
james＠machineroom.info -
mcguire＠neurotica.com -
wdonzelli＠gmail.com -
woyciesjes＠sbcglobal.net